Weekly Reader: The Descendants (The Descendants Series Book One)by Destiny Hawkins; Intriguing Concept in YA Science Fiction About Finding One's Own Personal Power in a World Full of Energy Abilities
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Many Science Fiction dystopian novels have characters being separated by some arbitrary type, as an analogy on how modern society separates people from larger categories like race and social class to minor sets like IQ's or personality types. Whether it's by brain type like in Brave New World, social and personality factions like in Divergent, or assigned careers like in The Giver.
In each one, there is a character (or characters) that doesn't fit into these assorted categories and questions the system that does this.
The themes often are that people are people. They are flexible, learning, adaptive, complex, messy, and can't always be put into a box. Human nature by its own definition is changeable and often resists such placement. A person who prefers to be introverted in private may be extroverted in their jobs. A person with a high IQ may not have a lot of common sense or street smarts.
While sometimes exploring such concepts may be interesting, that's a poor way of viewing the society at large.
Studying one's race and culture may drive a person to look into their own family history and where they came from. When someone takes a personality quiz, they could find favorite interests or a career in which they shine. But what is problematic is when people use those types to maintain superiority rather than equality. When they use those categories as an excuse to isolate and segregate people as a means to maintain that superiority.
That is the main theme that can be found in Destiny Hawkins' YA Dystopian Science Fiction novel, The Descendants. It is set in an alternate future in which people have different abilities in which they can control energy. They are called Lighters and are in charge of the Lighter Nation.
The Lighters are then put into three categories: Brighter (possessing incredible speed and strength), Elem (the ability to control earth, air, fire, and water), and Dim (create darkness). They are then separated into subcategories depending on the color that the Lighter emits like soma for dark blue, vex for turquoise blue, and kali for white. They then operate on different levels depending on the brightness of their light. As if to make the point less subtle, the narrator even remarks that it's a terrible way to separate people by color and by shades of that color (get it?).
Then there are the Nulls, people who cannot bring light forward at all. Rayah Bardeau, the narrator and protagonist, is one such Null. Nulls are treated horribly. If they can't demonstrate Lighter powers by the time they finish school, then they have to become slaves.
Major Artemis St. James, Rayah's former owner, is licking his lips in anticipation for that moment. While Rayah is at the Academy, her mother has taken her place as a slave but it is clear that he intends to use Rayah for more than chores.
Nulls are subjected to pain tests and other students are allowed to bully them. There are many intense scenes where Rayah is bullied by Artemis and the Lighter students. She isn't a slave by name, but it is apparent that most people in Lighter Nation do not treat her as a human being with equal rights.
What is particularly fascinating about the scenario that Hawkins writes is that The Descendants is almost the exact opposite of the scenario of X Men. Whereas the Marvel franchise depicts the people with powerful abilities as the outsiders, The Descendants portrays the ones without abilities as "The Others." Either way, they make the same point: that somehow bigoted people will find someone different to scapegoat, to look down upon, to isolate, to hate, to threaten, to hurt, and sometimes to kill just for who they are.
Some of the most interesting passages are when Rayah is in the Wild Lands, an area outside her homeland in which the citizens are forbidden to go. Of course, Rayah does and encounters people who live outside of Lighter rules and regulations. Her romance with Soren, one of the people from the Wild Lands, is a typical one for this genre though they are likable characters.
Soren is particularly helpful in that he sees Rayah as a person not a Null. She also sees Soren as a person and not a wildling. They see beyond the programming that society has given them into the soul inside.
What the Wild Lands chapters do is give Rayah chances to reveal her own power. During her academy studies, she has shown a strong talent for hand to hand combat. She is able to use that to defend her new friends when they are threatened. She also discovers new abilities that were never dead, just dormant.
Without spoilers, on the one hand this revelation plays into the problems in Rayah's society by revealing that she fits in after all. However, on the other hand, that could also be the point. The Lighter Nation citizens may believe that they need someone to look down on to the point that they will deprive someone of their innate abilities to make it happen. They would rather have a class of slaves than admit that everyone could be treated as an equal.
The Descendants has a lot to say about how we separate people into various types and categories and sometimes use them to look down upon others. It also shows how we can use our personal power to stand against that categorization and be seen as individuals.
